closed ( ☄ ) the place where the sea kisses the sky is a beautiful beginning to a painful end

[realists]

WHO: Jyn & Cassian
WHERE: Casa de Rogue One
WHEN: February 1 & February 5
WHAT: Cassian returns from Oros to some bad news
WARNINGS: Rogue One spoilers fo' sho'

--

The hangar is full of noise and hustle as the Oros mission teams return and the Captain calls any and all pilots to arms to rescue the natives of the planet below. All available pilots willing to brave bombs and certain death. Jyn knows of one pilot who would be willing to undertake a(nother) suicide mission, a pilot who is brave and good and would care about the citizens below who need to be protected, who would want to follow his heart and make right by himself.

The Rogue One cargo ship stays docked in the hangar and Jyn stays curled up in the co-pilot's seat while so many people around her rush to do good and help, radio crackling with ships requesting to depart the hangar. There's no point for her to move.

She doesn't have a pilot.

The sound of Cassian's boots on the ladder into the cockpit makes her stir, barely. She aches to bury her sorrow in his arms, but she doesn't move more than flicking the radio off and leaving them in a heavy silence that Jyn is going to keep wrapped around her like a blanket until Cassian breaks it, worrying the elastic band of Bodhi's goggles between her fingers.

Comments

[ouzel]

"Fuck," Cassian mutters, because truth be told he hates stims, hates that his body can be fooled into a false sense of security through nothing other than chemical reactions. Yet he let her do this, so. Also: "I was looking forward to a nap."

But, hey, since here is where they are he can just roll with it. Right? Right.

He wants to ask if she has any other requests, but what come out instead is: "You're welcome. Have you eaten?"

[realists]

"I didn't say thank you." How dare he know her well enough to catch what she leaves unsaid. Jyn bristles automatically even if she isn't actually upset by it, she's just keeping up the armor of being angry.

She snaps the needle between her middle and index fingers, dropping it and the spent stim into the medkit's biowaste container. "You don't get to sleep until you can go up and down the ladder without looking like you're going to fall." She knows sleep is good for a concussion, but not if he is still wobbly on his feet and she saw him go down the ladder, he's not steady.

Pushing back to her feet, she presses a couple tablets for pain into his hand, ignoring his question about her eating habits as she closes the medkit to put it away.

[ouzel]

"Was I supposed to wait until you did?" He figures he'd go more grey than he has already by the time that happened, so hopefully not.

At her orders for his health he rolls his eyes, but she has a point. Doesn't mean he has to like it.

"I can't take these on an empty stomach." Unless she wants him throwing up on her shoes. "Let's eat something?"

[realists]

"I'm not--" She sighs, rubbing her knuckles across her forehead before her arms fold over her chest. She's not hungry, but she has a feeling he knows that. Like he knows she meant to say thank you. He knows a lot of things she leaves unsaid, it's part of how easily they work together.

She tries to say I'm not hungry but instead, softly, she finally admits: "Cassian, he's gone."

Again. Bodhi is gone again. He'd arrived before she'd even had time to properly mourn him in the first place and now he's gone again and the grief is just compounded, with interest. Food tastes like the ashes of Scarif.

[ouzel]

Cassian looks down at his hands, uncertain of what to say next. I'm sorry doesn't begin to cut it; Bodhi was (is? how is he supposed to differentiate, now?) a living connection between Jyn and her father. That's not something that Cassian can hope to replace through any means.

His face twists, a bit of the mask slipping, but it's always slipped around her hasn't it?

"I am sorry though I know...that's not enough. I wish I knew what to do."

[realists]

"I--" She seems unable to finish that sentence, as if she has no idea where she was even going in the first place. She what? She's also sorry because Cassian deserved Bodhi, he was better than the both of them. Instead he gets Jyn who can't finish a sentence and won't admit how she feels about him even though they both know.

Her eyes slide to their bed of the own accord and Jyn's heart collapses, taking a jerky step back and toward the open cargo door.

"I can't.. do this." There is no note of finality to the fragile tone of her voice, brittle as a sheet of ice, and any apology she should speak is painted across her expression, a chiaroscuro of fear and loss. She doesn't mean forever, she doesn't even mean them, but she can't handle looking at Cassian and knowing he wanted to come back to the both of them and all he got instead was her because then her sorrow will be debilitating.

She takes another step back, holding up a pleading hand. "Go eat, I'll find you later."

The broken look in her eyes is the same hollow sadness that followed her from leaving Saw in Jedha and leaving her father on Eadu. No one saw her weep for her fathers, no one will see her weep for Bodhi, even Cassian who has already seen her break down.

"Please."

[ouzel]

Cassian swallows and nods, makes no move to get up from where he's sitting. "Okay." Should he tell her he'll wait? He suspects it's a given, though he will worry about her, automatically.

Later, when he can't sleep, he'll sit in front of her room and wish things were different - not for the first time and probably not for the last.

"Okay," he repeats again, more than at a loss.

[realists]

"Okay."

She feels helpless to fix her own mistakes and so instead of trying to suss out her own emotions enough to explain herself to Cassian she just turns and walks out of the cargo ship. Fight is usually her go to, but her flight response is impeccable.